The Real Russia. Today. Moscow manages the fallout of three killed reporters in Africa, and Russia's federal censor cracks down on a 14-year-old letter from a terrorist

Wednesday, August 1, 2018 (Meduza's newsletter is back, baby! We'll return to full strength tomorrow.)

This day in history. On August 1, 1940, the USSR's chief diplomat, Vyacheslav Molotov, told a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union that the workers of the three Baltic states — Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania — were “thrilled” to learn that they'd be joining the Soviet Union. Within a week, all three countries were “incorporated” into the USSR.

• Moscow tries to whitewash the deaths of three reporters investigating a Russian mercenary group in Africa
• Russia's federal censor orders a website to take down its copy of an infamous letter that was central to the 2004 Beslan hostage crisis
• Yekaterinburg police press extremism charges against a local neopagan leader
• A new prison torture scandal leads to arrests, and guards are still being arrested in Yaroslavl
• Some unbelievably cheap seats could be coming to Russia, but you'll be getting what you pay for

Murder in Africa 🌍

Responding to the murder of three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova expressed doubt on Wednesday that the reporters were actually investigating a Russian mercenary group. In a Facebook post, Zakharova wrote that reporter Orkhan Dzhemal, director Alexander Rastorguyev, and cameraman Kirill Radchenko weren’t “headed in the direction where [Russian military] instructors are working.” She described the film crew’s purpose in the country as “an open question.”

Zakharova also cited a Russian Foreign Ministry press release about “five military and 170 civilian instructors” working in the Central African Republic, apparently deliberately conflating Russia’s official “instructor” presence with the reported actions of the “Wagner” private military company in the country.

In a follow-up Facebook post, Zakharova criticized the journalists’ decision to travel to the Central African Republic on tourist visas, and urged other reporters to inform the Foreign Ministry about upcoming trips to any “complicated regions,” offering to establish contact with local officials and more.

Journalist Alexey Kovalev has drawn attention to the fact that the Russian state media has largely avoided mentioning the Wagner mercenary group in stories about the three Russian reporters dying in Africa this week. According to independent reports, Dzhemal, Rastorguyev, and Radchenko were filming a documentary about the private military company headed by Dmitry Utkin and financed by Evgeny Prigozhin (the same catering magnate with close Kremlin ties and his own “troll factory”).

Friends and colleagues of the three reporters have launched multiple crowdfunding efforts to collect money for the victims’ families, sharing bank account numbers to which supporters can send money. Maria Zakharova says Russian officials are working with locals to repatriate the bodies, which are expected to arrive in Moscow on August 3.

Extremist evidence ⚖️

Russia’s federal censor has ordered Pravda Beslana chief editor Marina Litvinovich to delete from its website a copy of a letter written by Shamil Basayev to the president of Ingushetia during the terrorist seizure of a school in Beslan in 2004. In the hand-written letter, Basayev demands that President Putin end all military operations in Chechnya and grant independence to the republic. The text was read into evidence at the trial against Basayev’s accomplices in Beslan, but in 2011 a judge in Moscow added the letter to Russia’s list of banned extremist materials. Pravda Beslana initially removed its copy of the letter from its website, but then republished it at a different URL.

Media Rights Protection Center director Galina Arapova told the newspaper Novaya Gazeta that Roskomnadzor’s crackdown on republications of Basayev’s letter “catastrophically contradicts the fundamental principles of Russian laws guaranteeing public access to socially important information, such as evidence submitted in open court.”

Neopagan extremism? 🙏

Vladimir Serga, the leader of the “Preservation of All Slavs” neopagan association in Yekaterinburg, has been charged with extremism, apparently for reposting extremist content in Vkontakte in 2016, though details are still unknown. On July 26, police searched his home, seizing some of his literature and data drives. Serga wasn’t jailed, but he’s currently not permitted to leave the city.

Reporters have tied the criminal case to the Russian Orthodox Church’s repeated complaints about Serga’s group using a local public park to perform pagan rituals. In 2016, parishioners at one local church even filed a police report against the neopagans.

More prison torture 👮‍♂️

Investigators in Vladimir have charged six prison guards with orchestrating the torture of inmates in pretrial detention. According to the district attorney’s office, abuses at the prison came to light in a recent murder case. In February 2017, officials put a 27-year-old suspect in a special jail cell, where fellow inmates tied him up, beat him, and tortured him. Prosecutors argue that the man was jailed illegally under these conditions to pressure him into offering up self-incriminating testimony. When the man was released from the jail cell the next day, he immediately reported the torture to the district attorney. Afterwards, he murdered the other inmate who had “initiated” the violence, stabbing him with a pen, slashing him with a razor, and strangling him with bedsheets.

During the murder investigation, officials learned about other incidents where the guards abused their authority. Officials are also pressing felony charges against two prisoners responsible for sexually assaulting fellow inmates.

🚨 More arrests in Yaroslavl

You’d be forgiven for confusing the Vladimir prison torture scandal with another prison torture scandal in Yaroslavl, where federal investigators have arrested several guards over the past two weeks, following the release of a shocking video showing more than a dozen guards torturing inmate Evgeny Makarov. On August 1, police detained another four guards, bringing the total number of detentions up to 12, including the prison’s deputy warden, who has been placed under house arrest.

The (really) cheap seats 🛤

The Federal Passenger Company (a subsidiary of Russian Railways) says it is working on a new “economy budget” travel option for customers really looking to pinch their kopecks. The new bargain class will use old train cars not equipped with air conditioning or modern toilets. The company hasn’t yet said when the new cheap seats will become available.